House Food Safety Bill Update
As you may be aware, the Senate passed by unanimous consent last night the food safety bill, by attaching it to a House-passed vehicle (H.R. 2751). This change was made to resolve the constitutional “blue-slip” issue, under which the fees included in the bill needed to be passed in a House-originated measure. The bill will now go back for a final vote in the House (presumably tomorrow), before going to the White House for signature.
The version passed last night is little changed from the Senate-passed bill (S. 510) – the ONLY changes made involved a technical change to the fees language (related to the constitutional “blue-slip” issue) and grammatical tweaks suggested by Legislative Counsel. You can refer back to my earlier summary of the Senate measure (as well as the modified Tester amendment on small farms that was attached to the bill in the Senate).